


a chapter of revelation.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas gets shotgun, Dean and Cas on the road, Dean's Ring, Future Fic, M/M, Married Life, Proposals, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>endings, beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Before they leave, Dean pulls him over and props open the trunk. 

“Look,” he says, and Castiel does.  Dean’s weapons, Sam’s too, all neatly organized, but there’s an empty space in the right-hand corner. “That’s for you. Store your trenchcoat. Your shit. Or whatever.”

Dean doesn’t look at him as he speaks, and Castiel is reminded of the morning, not so very long ago, when Dean dragged him off the couch in the library and into his bedroom, and unceremoniously emptied the contents of Castiel’s duffel bag into the two lowest dresser drawers  _“because you’re shorter, dude.”_

He hands Castiel a knife, hilt-first, and Castiel stares down at it, bemused.  Sam’s waiting, leaning against the passenger side door.  Castiel sees him duck his head to the side, grinning, and he wonders what’s to come.

Dean climbs in the back seat next to Castiel, pulls up the upholstery on the back of the seat.  _S.W.  D.W._

“Your turn,” Dean says.

He leans against Castiel’s shoulder, just for a moment.  So Castiel carefully scratches a tiny _C_ , then a _W_ , in the space below the first set of initials.  When he’s finished, Dean’s in the driver’s seat.  Sam’s in shotgun. 

He meets Dean’s eyes in the rear view mirror. 

“Ready?” Dean asks, and without waiting for an answer he turns over the Impala’s engine. “Hope this place lives up to its reputation.”

Castiel leans back and closes his eyes. 

He opens them again: the dark of night, ignited with sparks.  Streaks of brilliant light flash before him: luminescent golds and silvers, sanguine and verdigris.  It’s not just a memory.  

“Guess we finally made it,” Dean says, a near whisper, and Sam laughs.  Castiel sees his expression in the mirror.  It’s something not unlike peace.  

Dean grins at Sam, turns in his seat and reaches out for Castiel’s hand.     _We’re home._


	2. Chapter 2

Sam thinks that Castiel isn’t ready for riding shotgun.

Castiel has dangerously wandering hands.  He starts poking at the dashboard buttons before they’ve even made it out of Kansas, and in a perilous move, he resets all Dean’s classic rock radio presets to an eclectic mix of acoustic rock, Tejano, and Chris LeDoux; he blasts the air conditioning until it freezes over and somehow manages to jam the only vent that reaches the backseat.

He pokes at the clasp on the glove box until it springs open, causing an impressive collection of never-paid speeding tickets, forged identity cards, and ancient motel receipts to rain down on the floorboard, and he digs under the front seat and pulls out various objects, presenting them to Dean for explanation: a bottle opener (Dean’s), pair of ladies’ underwear (most definitely  _not_ Dean’s), and a fascinatingly gruesome mildewed sock (most definitely Sam’s). 

He rifles through Dean’s box of cassettes, and in an unprecedented move Dean _lets_ him, at first, until he realizes what Cas is up to.

“What the _hell_ , Cas?” Dean shouts, and the Impala swerves furiously across the road.  “First fucking rule of the road is, you don’t mess with a man’s music, and you sure as hell don’t fucking _alphabetize_ it, either.”

Castiel glowers right back, completely unimpressed by the way the Impala slides back and forth across the yellow line. “They were completely out of order, I have _no_ idea how you ever managed to find what you were looking for.  I was _helping_ _._ ”

Dean snatches the box of cassettes out of Castiel’s hands and passes them over the bench seat to Sam, who guards them in the backseat.  “They _were_ in order!” he hisses madly,  “I had a system and you _ruined_ it!”

Castiel folds his arms across his chest and turns away huffily.  He stares out the window, maintaining a stoically abused silence for the next two hours. 

He refuses to either hold the map or keep track of the exits - _“I’m an angel, I don’t need a map”_ - but he does keep up a passing commentary on what he sees out the windows, pointing out misspelled church signs, billboards, and the state of origin and creative wordplays featured on vanity license plates, and he squints and adjusts the visor until the sun shines directly into Sam’s eyes.

Castiel rolls down the window and sticks out his hand, letting the wind cut through his fingers and doesn’t seem to care that’s _ruining_ Sam’s hair, and when they stop for fast food he hangs a little pine-scented air freshener on the rearview mirror “ _because Sam ordered a burrito, Dean.”_

He finds the spot where the Impala’s upholstery has started to come apart and picks at it silently for hours, until there’s a steadily-growing bald patch covering a good square foot of the passenger seat, and that’s the final fucking straw, apparently.  

“The trunk’s big enough to hold a dead body and I’m pretty damn sure the next one’s gonna be your angelic ass,” Sam hears Dean snapping as they drive past the exit.   

Castiel just doesn’t get the _honor_ of riding shotgun: he doesn’t sing along to the music or even _try_ to refrain from making snide remarks about Dean’s blatant disregard for the speed limit, and Sam doesn’t understand why Dean’s allowing him to ride next to him at all.   

The fierce glow of sunset is golden-bright and mica-sharp, glinting off the pavement, and up ahead Sam can see that promised land, the end, and just like every other end it’s really just a hole in the ground, with the lazy turmoil of the Colorado River cutting through redwall cliffs and layers of sandstone and shale. 

Dean slows down and pulls the Impala over on the shoulder.

There’s a stillness that hits Sam when the engine cuts off, and he’s opening his mouth to ask why they’ve stopped, but there’s a curious silence in car despite the fact that _Zeppelin IV_ is still playing in the background.  It takes him a moment to realize that the silence is because Castiel has fallen asleep: he can see, just over Dean’s arm spread across the top of the seat, that his head is tilted and leaning against Dean’s shoulder.

Sam glances into the rearview mirror, trying to catch Dean’s eye, but Dean’s not even paying attention; Sam can see from his reflection that he’s just sitting there, one arm around Cas’s shoulders, just watching the fallen angel slumped against his side.  He’s grinning like a fool.  

Sam thinks that Castiel might be ready for riding shotgun after all.  He finds he doesn’t mind quite as much as he’d thought.

“Wake up, sleepyhead, we’re almost there,” Dean’s saying over the sound of Plant singing _and she’s climbing the stairway to heaven,_ his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the back of Cas’s neck in time to the music, and then Cas is opening the passenger door and sliding into the backseat and poking at his ribs, saying, “Sam. _Sam_. It’s your turn.”


	3. Chapter 3

He drives through the night so Cas won’t have to.  Cas avoids the night sky like the plague, but on the other side of the windshield the horizon has gone gray with light.  It might be safe to wake him up, now that the stars have almost faded away with the night. He doesn’t want Cas to count the stars, and find their numbers are less than he remembers.

Highway 281, and they haven’t passed another car since Nebraska.  Dean pulls the Impala over.  There’s a marker on the side of  the road, just up ahead.  Odds are ten to one that Cas isn’t going to be pleasant company after sleeping for the past four hours with his head tilted towards the window, but Dean thinks he’ll take the risk.  It’s no longer night but it’s not quite morning; all the coffee’s gone and yeah, Cas is going to bitch about that too.

He taps Cas’s shoulder, and he shudders awake, immediately disgruntled and rousing out of sleep with vague alarm.  "Get up," Dean tells him, insistent, and Cas levels him with a glare.

"Why’d you stop?"

"Wanted to do something with you."

Sometimes Dean thinks this isn’t what he had in mind.  He hadn’t pictured champagne and roses, but then again he also hadn’t imagined Cas breaking the way he has: heart gone brittle as glass, that uncompromising stoicism the only dam holding back a flood of the kind of hurt that strips the flesh from bones, the kind of sadness that bites down hard and digs through the skin like barbed wire.

This isn’t what he had in mind, lying awake in his bed during those pale hours before dawn, knowing Cas has discovered what it means to cry himself to sleep, hearing him somehow through walls of concrete and steel; seeing him gray and drawn in the morning, washed-out with grief.  

This isn’t what he’d pictured all those times when he’d imagined saying,  _You could stay with me, you could make this your home._  This isn’t what either of them had wanted.

"Come on," Dean says, and slides out of the car.  After a moment, he hears Cas do the same.

Cas joins him, standing close by his side.  They lean against the Impala, staring out across the highway, past the darkened wheat fields and the silhouette of silos.  

"What are we doing?" Cas asks finally, breaking the silence.  Dean can feel his hip dig into his side, just below the belt.  

Dean sweeps his arms out and tells him, “This is the center of the country. The heartland, Cas."  

Cas isn’t impressed.  “The geodetic center of the United States is approximately half a mile away, in the middle of that field."

"Shut up," Dean says. “You’re ruining the moment."

Together they watch as light floods across the horizon.  The wheat in the field goes golden with it.  He leans against Cas’s shoulder, a seamless line where their sides meet.  “Pretty awesome, huh?”  

He hears Cas snort.  “I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of sunrises.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. This isn’t much of a consolation prize, he figures.  But he reaches up and grips Cas’s shoulder tight anyway.  “But never with  _me_.”

Cas sounds considering.  "That’s true.”

They’re almost home, only miles left to go.  But Dean’s not in any hurry to leave.  He thinks he’d be okay with staying like this, leaning against Cas and watching the sun come up forever.  Or for as long as Cas’ll let him, anyway.

Somehow his arms have wrapped themselves around Cas’s chest, fingers meeting somewhere just below his heart.  Dean holds him close.  Here at the center, the world’s almost steady.

Cas yawns, and he shifts around restlessly inside Dean’s arms. His nose is practically in Dean’s hair.  “Is the moment over?" 

“Are you gonna be a dick about this?”

"Depends.  Are you going to buy me coffee?"


	4. Chapter 4

You’re on the road, counting down the miles that slip past like beads on a rosary, when you’re hit once again with the sudden, overwhelming revelation that you’re in love with an angel.

It hits you now from somewhere out of left field, descending from the sky like an act of God, and it feels, as always, like a punch to the gut, or being struck by lightning.  You hear what must be your heart rattling somewhere inside your chest, your words turn to ash in your mouth, your fingers grow cold and distant on the steering wheel.

Sometimes it just hits you, out of the blue, and you always need a moment to recover.

You pull over on the side of the road and bury your head in your hands.

You believe in a lot of things.  You believe in ghosts and monsters, the practical uses of holy water and rounds of rock salt, heaven and hell and just about everything in between, but this,  _this_  is the hardest thing to swallow. 

What gets you every time is that you’re in love with an angel, and while it it might be hard to believe, it’s impossible to ignore.

And sometimes you just  _can’t_  believe it, because your life has always been too strange for words to describe, but there it is anyway; there  _he_  is, gazing at you in mild concern because the Impala is parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, while you’re busy gasping for air like each breath might be your last.  

He’s  _always_  there, he never leaves your sight, that’s what makes it so hard to remember he’s  _real_  and not just some ever-present figment of your imagination.

Because you’re in love with the angel riding shotgun in your ‘67 Impala, the one drumming his fingers slowly against the armrest to the classic rock coming from the radio, while late afternoon sunlight pours through the windows and glints off the thin silver band he’s worn on his left hand since the day the gates of heaven closed forever, since the day you broke every speed limit to reach him in time, when you stumbled out of the car and fell on your knees and begged him to stay.

And what’s more, you’re in love with an angel who’s less like an angel with every passing day, an angel who’s achingly human, an angel with broken bones and a beating heart.

You’re in love with an angel who steals your clothes indiscriminately, who’s wearing your favorite blue flannel shirt right fucking now; the one who can’t be bothered to ever shave or trim his hair, and yeah, you’ll admit that you’re in love with the way it falls in his eyes, the way rough curls form on the nape of his neck.

You’re in love with the angel who walks out of the bathroom every morning with toothpaste still on his face, and it’s these little things that jump to mind when you wonder if it’s possible for you to love this otherworldly creature in your possession any more than you already do. 

It’s these little things make you smile crookedly when you realize the answer is yes, always  _yes._

Yeah, you’re in love with the angel who sits across from you at every roadside diner, eating a burger with such seriousness.  Yeah, you’re in love with an angel who’s still no good at small talk but knows all the lyrics to your Zeppelin cassettes.  You’re in love with an angel who laughs, now; an angel who quirks the corner of his mouth, pleased, when he understands the references you toss at him with every other breath; an angel who looks at you so often with fond amusement reflecting in his eyes and yeah, you’re in love with the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he chuckles quietly at the worst of your jokes. 

You’re in love with an angel who sneezes and steals your fries and twists the sheets into a hopeless knot every night and always cuts himself shaving, and, after all, sometimes the strangest part is that he still looks at you with stars in his eyes.

You will never understand why he’s so content with a life of backwater motels and miles of blacktop and saving your ass while the pair of you chase down the last remaining wendigos and ghosts, but you wake up every morning thanking whoever might still be out there listening that he’s still here with you.

Because you’re in love with an angel who falls asleep in the passenger seat with his head on your shoulder, who studies your maps with a frown of concentration, who’s cranky until his first cup of coffee and sometimes even until his second.  An angel who chose you, out of all of creation, over immortality, over heaven; an angel who occasionally sets a toaster on fire and curses in Enochian and loves you unconditionally.

And so sometimes you can’t help but stare at him in disbelief, because you’re convinced the angel riding shotgun simply can’t be  _real._

And since he always knows exactly what you need without you having to say a word; he just smiles and takes your hand.

Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re in love with an angel.

Sometimes it’s just hard to believe you’re in love.


End file.
